Term of the Day

A High-Pressure Pipeline is a type of pipeline that is used to transport crude oil, petroleum products and natural gas across countries or within states at very high pressure. In order to keep the liquids and gases flowing in the pipeline, the pressure of the pipeline has be to increased and constantly kept in the range of 200 to 1500 psi...
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Oil Recovery

Definition - What does Oil Recovery mean?

Oil Recovery is a process of extracting crude oil from an oil field. There are three different phases of Oil Recovery, i.e., primary, secondary and tertiary. Many oil wells reach their maximum production range and it becomes difficult to extract the remaining natural resources from the oil fields. Therefore, Oil Recovery ensures that the original oil resources can be extracted from the reservoirs easily. Oil recovery is also sometimes referred to as tertiary recovery or improved oil recovery.

Petropedia explains Oil Recovery

During crude oil extraction, an oil well goes through three recovery phases, namely primary, secondary and tertiary. In the primary phase, the natural pressure of an oil field pushes the oil to the surface and at times it can be accompanied by pumps. In the secondary recovery phase, the oil is extracted by pumping gas or water into the reservoir. The last resort to extracting all the existing oil resource from the reservoir is the tertiary recovery. Commonly known as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), tertiary recovery makes use of advanced methods in which heat, chemical and gas is used to stimulate the oil well to increase production.